I would rather die of passion than of boredom.

À cette heure, elle voulut le mal, le mal que personne ne commet, le mal qui allait emplir son existence vide et la mettre enfin dans cet enfer dont elle avait toujours peur.

His was the sceptical boredom of a whole generation, no longer the romantic ennui of a Werther or a Rene lamenting the passing of old beliefs, but the boredom of the new doubting heroes, the young chemists who angrily proclaim the world intolerable because they have not immediately found life at the bottom of their test tubes.

Boredom was at the root of Lazare's unhappiness, an oppressive, unremitting boredom, exuding from everything like the muddy water of a poisoned spring. He was bored with leisure, with work, with himself even more than with others. Meanwhile he blamed his own idleness for it, he ended by being ashamed of it.